Below is text from one section of Douglas
Galbi’s paper, “Revolutionary Ideas for Radio Regulation.” For other
sections, see www.galbithink.org
or www.ssrn.com

IV. Personal Freedom and Licensing

Whether persons need to be licensed to use radio has often
been considered with misplaced emphasis. Consider this recommendation from the
European Radiocommunications Committee (ERC) on exemption from individual
licensing:

Licensing is an appropriate tool
for Administrations to regulate the use of radio equipment and the efficient
use of the frequency spectrum. However, the technical characteristics of radio
equipment require less intervention from the Administrations as far as the
installation and use of equipment is concerned. Administrations and especially
users, retailers and manufacturers will benefit from a more deregulated system
of authorising the use of radio equipment.

There is general agreement that
when the efficient use of the frequency spectrum is not at risk and as long as
harmful interference is unlikely, the installation and use of radio equipment
can be exempt from a licence. …

When radio equipment is subject
to an exemption from individual licensing, anyone can buy, install, possess and
use the radio equipment without prior permission from the Administration.
Furthermore, the Administration will not register the individual equipment.
The use of the equipment can be subject to general provisions.[1]

The recommendation first describes licensing as a tool for
regulators (Administrations), one that might be used less while still meeting
regulatory objectives. Further on, the recommendation describes consequences
for personal freedom in a paragraph whose main subject is radio equipment. The
recommendation, read narrowly, points in a sensible policy direction. But this
recommendation, and radio regulation more generally, needs to better appreciate
physical truth and human freedom.

Electromagnetic radiation is a fundamental aspect of the
physical world and human freedom. All bodies with temperature above absolute
zero radiate some energy across the whole electromagnetic spectrum.[2]
When human beings use fire to keep warm, to dispel darkness, or to communicate,
they use electromagnetic spectrum. Putting on a wool sweater or working
across a thick rug can generate electromagnetic waves, as can a variety of
other human activities. The freedom to be warm, to shine light, or to create
electric sparks in the world is not contingent on the efficient use of
electromagnetic spectrum.

The definition of radio communications subject to regulation
must be understood as subordinate to the understanding of human freedom. While
the first two international radiotelegraph conventions defined radio
communications implicitly as wireless telegraphy, the U.S. proposal to the
International Radiotelegraph Conference in Washington in 1927 took a different
approach. The proposal defined “radio communications”:

The term “radio communication”
as used in this convention means the transmission of intelligence, photographs,
reproductions, or any other subject matter, without connecting wires, by
radiated electromagnetic energy.[3]

Light is a form of radiated electromagnetic energy. Thus
the plain language of the above definition covers all forms of light-mediated
communication – reading texts; observed motion, form, and gesture; and
explicit signaling with light, such as hanging lanterns in a church to convey
signals of public importance. If this proposal had not been limited de
facto by an understanding of freedom, it would have represented a more
dramatic denial of human rights than the most oppressive governments in the
world have ever proposed.

Definitions of “radio communications” adopted in
international radio regulations made the controlling position of human freedom
less obvious but no less important. The Washington Conference of 1927 adopted
this definition of “radio communications”:

The term “radio communication,”
applies to the transmission by radio of writing, signs, signals, pictures, and
sounds of all kinds by means of Hertzian waves.[4]

The convention did not define “radio” or “Hertzian waves.”[5]
In the Madrid Conference of 1932, the relevant definitions in international
radio regulations became:

Radio communication: Any
telecommunication by means of Hertzian waves.

Telecommunication: Any
telegraph or telephone communication of signs, signals, writings, images, and
sounds of any nature, by wire, radio, or other systems or processes of electric
or visual (semaphore) signaling.[6]

Again there was no definition of “radio” or “Hertzian
waves,” but some types of light-mediated communication clearly fell within the
definition of telecommunication. The Atlantic City Conference of 1947 added a
definition of Hertzian waves:

Hertzian Waves: Electromagnetic
waves of frequencies between 10 kc/s and

This definition of Hertzian waves excludes the
electromagnetic waves that the human eye normally processes (electromagnetic
waves with frequencies between 810 terahertz and 1620 terahertz, i.e. light). By
1959 international radio regulations had equated radio waves and Hertzian
waves, and defined both together with reference to a specific medium of propagation.
The definition also included additional frequencies:

This definition is currently embedded in the national law of
many countries, including U.S. administrative law.[10]
The incoherence, instability, and arbitrariness of the definition of radio
communications have attracted little attention. That indicates confidence that
radio regulation will defer to established understandings of human freedom.

Such confidence has some factual support. Consider some
aspects of U.S. experience. While it is common knowledge that high-power
electric lines can cause interference to radio and television signals, the FCC
only regulates limited aspects of electric utilities.[11]
A single automobile with its engine running creates at 10 meters’ distance a
field strength greater than the limit that defines auctioned spectrum boundary
rights in the frequency range 700 and 800 MHz.[12]
Nonetheless, the FCC does not regulate automobiles. A U.S. government study
showed that in worst cases windmills produce objectionable distortions of TV
reception within a few miles’ distance.[13]
Yet the FCC never tilted its regulatory power toward windmills. Free space
optical communications systems are now being implemented for terrestrial
services and for communications among satellites.[14]
The FCC has chosen not to regulate these systems, and generally does not
regulate light or the generation of light.[15]
The FCC has provided a comprehensive regulatory scheme for radio use. But in
important, practical ways the meaning of those words has been subordinate to
ideas of human freedom, understood with respect to true descriptions of persons
and the world.[16]

Distracted by the many pressing tasks of the day, regulators
and other human beings can fail to act in accordance with what is most
important. Promoting every person’s freedom to be who she or he truly is, in
the world as it really exists, surely is one of the most important objectives
of communications policy. What freedom means should not be taken for granted.[17]
The freedom that comes from being alone, lost in a cave, facing certain death
in a few days, differs from the freedom that comes from an ever-loving wife who
has a secure, well-paying job.[18]
The physical freedom of a drunk differs from that of a well-trained actor, and
the intellectual freedom of the learned is not the same as that of the
innocent. One must confront real, historical experience of freedom and reflect
on what one finds, on what one knows to be true, and on how to address any
contradiction between the two – you, now, here, in this field.

Amateur radio, the Internet, and commercial wireless
services are fields dominated by radically different understandings of personal
freedom. Hams, hackers, and yackers, the most distinctive characters in those
respective fields, share common biological, social, and cultural features.
They are members of the same species, they may be neighbors, or even the same
person engaged in different activities in different times and places. In each
of these fields, person-to-person communication for non-commercial purposes
comprises an important part of activity in the field. Each of these fields
involves similar, general-purpose information and communications technologies.
This technology is amenable to personalization, diversity, and decentralized
evolution fueled by user creativity. It is also amenable to abusive use,
interference, and breakdowns in operating standards and cooperation. This
section will show that, despite their similar characteristics and
possibilities, the fields of amateur radio, the Internet, and commercial wireless
services have incarnated much different ideas of freedom.

The facts about these fields should serve as a policy
warning. The range of real possibilities in regulation is enormous. Yet
freedom that has merely a conventional meaning is not a worthy guide to
policy. Deliberation about freedom needs to evolve as a working consensus in
tension with a search for truth about what persons do and the way the world
is. This section provides material for such deliberation.

1. Amateur Radio

Amateur radio is a field that grew with the development of
radio technology early in the twentieth century. Amateur radio users are
called amateurs or “hams.”[19]Now You’re Talking, an amateur radio association’s guidebook for
aspiring hams, describes amateur radio as follows:

Ham radio offers so much
variety, it would be hard to describe all its activities in a book twice this
size! Most of all, ham radio gives you a chance to meet other people who like
to communicate. That’s the one thing all hams have in common. You can communicate
with other hams on a simple hand-held radio that fits in your pocket.[20]

Public service is also an important part of hams’
self-understanding. Hams have long provided emergency communications for local
community events and in response to natural disasters. Hams have also
contributed significantly to advancing radio technology, such as pioneering
early high-frequency communications and popularizing packet radio. Some hams
currently communicate via Morse Code and single-sideband voice communications,
methods of communications that have been in use for over half a century. Other
hams explore digital signal processing, software-defined radios, moon-bounce
communications, and communications using specially designed earth-orbiting
satellites. The three-million hams worldwide form a community with a strong
sense of tradition and identity. Amateur radio has created for hams
opportunities for social interaction, for serving the public, and for
exercising engineering creativity. Hams’ appreciation for the freedom they
have found in amateur radio, and their dedication to preserving it, cannot be
doubted.

To a remarkable degree, hams understand their activities to
be dependent on government license. This view goes all the way back to the
beginning of radio. The development of radio implicitly raised the question of
whether persons have some natural rights to communicate by radio. Most
governments, and amateurs, seemed to assume that persons do not. Nonetheless,
absent effective means of suppression, amateur radio developed naturally,
through personal curiosity and creativity. About 1912, there were roughly
8000 amateur radio users and 230 amateur radio clubs in the U.S.[21]
The U.S. Radio Act of 1912 was hailed as a great victory for amateurs. An amateur
activist/magazine publisher declared, “The amateur had at last come into his
own…. Uncle Sam has set his seal of approval upon the amateur’s wireless...”,
and of course, “the entire credit for obtaining the amateur’s rights belongs to
[the author]…”[22]
Here is what the Act said regarding amateurs’ rights:

No private or commercial station
not engaged in the transaction of bona fide commercial business by radio
communication or in experimentation in connection with the development and
manufacture of radio apparatus for commercial purposes shall use a transmitting
wave length exceeding two hundred meters, or transformer input exceeding one
kilowatt, except by special authority of the Secretary of Commerce and Labor…[23]

Ten years later a historian asked, without even a whiff of
self-consciousness, “What has the amateur done in the past ten years, to
justify the privileges granted him by his government?”[24]

Over time amateurs’ rights have been further elaborated
through national and international regulations. In these regulations,
amateurs’ rights to communicate internationally depend not just on the
amateur’s government but on mutual international agreement. International
radio regulations require governments not to permit amateurs to communicate
with amateurs in a country whose government objects to such communication. Government
suppression of amateur communications in one country thus creates a reciprocal
obligation for like suppression by other countries.[25]

Amateur privileges do not include privacy. Communications
between two hams are potentially accessible to anyone with appropriate
operating equipment and within the geographic range of the signal.
International amateur regulations enforce this lack of privacy by declaring
that amateur stations should transmit their call signs (station identification)
“at short intervals” and by stating that international amateur communications
should be “in plain language.”[26]
In the US, FCC regulations require that call signs be transmitted at the end of
each communication and at least every ten minutes during communications.[27]
The FCC provides on the Internet a searchable licensing database that allows a
call sign to be linked to the licensee’s name and address.[28]
FCC regulations prohibit international or domestic amateur
communications “in codes or ciphers intended to obscure the meaning thereof.”[29]
Controversy over encryption technology, police access to personal
communications, and unauthorized collection of personally identifying
information has been bluntly pre-empted in amateur radio regulation.

International treaties and national regulations also govern
the content and purpose of amateur communications. Under international radio
regulations, communications between amateurs in different countries must be:

…limited to messages of a
technical nature relating to tests and to remarks of a personal character for
which, by reason of their unimportance, recourse to the public
telecommunications service is not justified. It is absolutely forbidden for
amateur stations to be used for transmitting international communications on
behalf of third parties.[30]

FCC regulations prohibit amateur communications containing
“obscene or indecent words or language,” “false or deceptive message,” or
music.[31]
The amateur radio service cannot be used for “communications for hire or for
material compensation,” “any form of broadcasting,” “one-way communications”
except of limited types, “activity related to program production or news
gathering for broadcasting purposes,” retransmissions “from any type of radio
station other than an amateur station,” or “[c]ommunications, on a regular
basis, which could reasonably be furnished alternatively through other radio
services.”[32]
Although regulation specifically forbids amateurs from engaging in “any form of
broadcasting,” amateur radio is considered similar to broadcasting for content
regulatory purposes.[33]
The regulations on the content and purpose of amateur radio underscore the
absence of any presumption of free communications in amateur radio.

Under international and national regulations, persons must
demonstrate technical qualifications to be licensed to engage in amateur
communications. An ITU recommendation passed in August, 2001 indicates:

…at minimum, any person seeking
an amateur license should demonstrate theoretical knowledge of specific topics
in the areas of radio regulations, methods of radiocommunications, radio system
theory, radio emission safety, electromagnetic compatibility, and avoidance and
resolution of radio frequency interference.[34]

Amateurs who want to make use of amateur frequencies below
30 MHz are required under international regulations to be able to transmit and
receive in Morse Code.[35]
In the US, FCC regulations link a ladder of three licensing tests to the extent
of amateur frequency privileges.[36]
The connection between passing a more difficult licensing test and getting more
extensive frequency privileges seems to relate not to necessary technical
knowledge, but to creating objective support for group boundaries and privilege
hierarchies.

Well-established amateur radio associations strongly support
amateur radio freedom defined by international and national authority. The
International Amateur Radio Union (IARU), created in 1925, actively
participates in ITU conferences that define international radio regulations
through international treaty.[37]
The American Radio Relay League (ARRL), founded in 1914 for U.S. amateurs,
serves as the International Secretariat for the IARU.[38]
For the aspiring ham, the ARRL sells for $19 a three-hundred page guidebook, Now
You’re Talking, subtitled, All You Need For Your First Amateur Radio
License. Chapter 1 (30 pages) is “Federal Communication [sic] Commission’s
Rules.” The underlying theme of this chapter is that hams have been given
operational freedoms by government and that these freedoms are secured by hams
submitting to government authority. These excerpts indicate the orientation:

You should also post your
original license, or a photocopy of it, in your station after it arrives in the
mail. You will be proud of earning the license, so display it in your
station. A copy of the license on the wall also makes your station look more
“official.”

Amateur licenses are printed on
a laser printer, and issued in two parts (Figure 1-2). One part is small
enough to carry with you; the other can be framed and displayed in your shack.
This means you can carry your license and display it! Laser ink can
smear, so it’s a good idea to have your wallet copy laminated. If the small
part is too large for your wallet, you can make a reduced-size copy on a
photocopier. If you carry a copy, you can leave your original safely at home.
Although you can legally carry a copy, your original license must be available
for inspection by any U.S. government official or FCC
representative. Don’t lose the original license!

…

Keep in mind that the FCC has
the authority to modify the terms of your amateur license any time they
determine that such a modification will promote the public interest, convenience,
and necessity.

…

Consider laminating your
original license, as the ink sometimes lifts off the paper, even if you place
the license behind glass in a frame.

…

Suppose you receive an official
notice from the FCC informing you that you have violated a regulation. Now
what should you do? Simple: Whatever the notice tells you to do.[39]

Thus the authority of national regulations, re-enforced by
international treaties, defines what amateurs understand as their freedom.

Interference among hams is not a significant public policy
issue. Amateur radio has been assigned rights to use only limited radio
frequencies. In addition, one ham’s use of a particular frequency at a
particular place and time could potentially interfere with another ham’s use of
that frequency. The number of hams is not limited, nor are particular
frequencies assigned to particular hams. Interference among hams undoubtedly
occurs. Nonetheless, formal, authoritative regulation of interference among
hams is essentially non-existent. Hams seem to cope with interference through
personal courtesy, operational adaptability, and consensus-based coordination
mechanisms.

2. The Internet

The Internet consists of interconnected but somewhat
autonomous electronic information and communications systems. The Internet
began as a system for sharing computational resources among geographically
dispersed academic and government researchers. By the late 1980s, e-mail had
inadvertently become an important use. In the mid-1990s, a simple interface for
sharing text and images (the Web) spurred dramatic Internet growth. Hackers,
the community of experts in computer programming and electronic networking, are
acutely conscious of their particular freedoms. Hackers have played a major
role in making the Internet what it is.[40]
Other Internet users more passively make choices among the capabilities that
the Internet offers. Habitually exercised and thus naturalized, such choices
also inculcate the Internet field’s understanding of freedom.

Compared to freedom in amateur radio, freedom in the
Internet field takes on a radically different meaning. A Declaration of the
Independence of Cyberspace, a document issued on the Internet in 1996 and
subsequently widely discussed, opened with these words:

Governments of the Industrial
World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new
home of the Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us
alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.[41]

An informally recognized hacker-leader performed another
dramatic challenge to authority:

In 1977, while attending a
science-fiction convention, [Richard M. Stallman] came across a woman selling
custom-made buttons. Excited, Stallman ordered a button with the words
“Impeach God” emblazoned on it.

…Stallman wore the button
proudly. People curious enough to ask him about it received the same
well-prepared spiel. “My name is Jehovah,” Stallman would say. “I have a
special plan to save the universe, but because of heavenly security reasons I
can’t tell you what the plan is. You’re just going to have to put your faith
in me, because I see the picture and you don’t. You know I’m good because I
told you so. If you don’t believe me, I’ll throw you on my enemies list and
throw you in a pit were Infernal Revenue Service will audit your taxes for
eternity.”

Those who interpreted the spiel
as a word-for-word parody of the Watergate hearings only got half the message.
For Stallman, the other half of the message was something only his fellow
hackers seemed to be hearing. One hundred years after Lord Acton warned about
absolute power corrupting absolutely, Americans seemed to have forgotten the
first part of Acton’s truism: power, itself, corrupts. Rather
than point out the numerous examples of petty corruption, Stallman felt content
voicing his outrage toward an entire system that trusted power in the first
place.[42]

Elsewhere, this hacker-leader presents himself as a general,
writing:

…some of my cities have fallen.
Then I found another threatened city, and got ready for another battle. Over
time, I’ve learned to look for threats and put myself between them and my city,
calling on other hackers to come and join me.

…We can’t take the future of
freedom for granted. Don’t take it for granted! If you want to keep your
freedom, you must be prepared to defend it.[43]

Another hacker-leader wrote and made freely available on the
Internet a fourteen-page article, “How to Become a Hacker.” The substance of
the article begins this way:

Hackers solve problems and build
things, and they believe in freedom and voluntary mutual help. To be accepted
as a hacker, you have to behave as though you have this kind of attitude
yourself. And to behave as though you have the attitude, you have to really
believe the attitude.[44]

The article then offers a modern Zen poem for inspiration,
and advises: “So, if you want to be a hacker, repeat the following things until
you believe them….” Although exactly what should be repeated is not entirely
clear, this appears to be the litany:

The world is full of fascinating
problems waiting to be solved.

No problem should ever have to
be solved twice.

Boredom and drudgery are evil.

Freedom is good.

Attitude is no substitute for
competence.

The article then goes on to advise on how to acquire hacking
skills and on socially valued uses of these skills.

Hackers and others actively engaged with the Internet would
consider government licensing of Internet users to be an outrage. This is so
even though hackers seem to be historically linked to amateur radio users, and
a leading hacker is also a leader in amateur radio.[45]
This is so even though the challenge of initiating new users and the problems
of abusive use, interference, and breakdowns in operating standards and
cooperation are similar in amateur radio and on the Internet. Nonetheless,
government licensing of Internet users would be abhorred as a violation of
God-given inalienable rights. Or abhorred as a violation of natural human
rights. Or abhorred as a violation of what most persons, deliberating under
appropriately specified circumstances, would come to agree to regard as rights
persons should have irrespective of decisions made by duly constituted
governing authorities. Freedom to use the Internet is not understood as a
privilege granted by national governments and international treaties. In the
Internet field, freedom means capabilities that persons should personally
recognize, cultivate, and defend.

Internet users have recognized, cultivated and defended
capabilities that some governments would prefer to suppress. Supporters of
democracy in China and adherents of the Falun Gong movement have vigorously
sought to communicate with persons in China. When the founder of China’s first
human-rights website was arrested, supporters copied his website to a server in
the U.S. and the contents of the website remained accessible to persons in China.[46]
In contrast to amateur radio communications, international law does not require
the U.S. or any other country to shut down Internet communications that the
Chinese government does not want to occur.

Hackers and others actively engaged in shaping the Internet
have sought to promote capabilities for privacy. In 1993, a programmer in Finland
implemented in his spare time an anonymous re-mailer (a means for e-mail
anonymity) that by 1996 had more than half a million users worldwide.[47]
By early 1999 there were about 40 anonymous re-mailers accessible on the
Internet.[48]
Services have been developed to allow users to browse the Web anonymously.
Encryption technologies are readily available on the Internet. Internet
activist have put strong pressure on the U.S. government to relax its
restrictions on the export of advanced encryption software, and they have
strongly resisted law enforcement initiatives to increase capabilities to
monitor Internet communications. In contrast to amateur radio users, Internet
users probably would not warmly embrace government regulations requiring them
to identify all their communications with a national identification number
linked to their names and addresses in a national, publicly available database.[49]

The Internet recognizes relatively few restrictions on
purpose of use or content. The Internet was designed as a general-purpose
medium. It has been used for person-to-person mail, instructional services,
transaction systems, monitoring and tracking services, telephony, text, audio
and video broadcasting, and a variety of other purposes. Content on the
Internet spans the full range of human expression. Poetry, personal diaries,
independent newsgathering and reporting, political commentary from widely
different perspectives, false and deceptive information, and racist,
xenophobic, misogynistic and misandristic tracts all can be found readily on
the Internet. Photographs and videos of naked human sexual acts, which many
would regard as obscene or, alternatively, prurient, are also widely
available. When the U.S. government in 1996 passed a law regulating indecent
content on the Internet, many high-traffic websites temporarily suspended
normal communication as an act of protest. A broad coalition of Internet and
civil liberties groups challenged the law in court, and the U.S. Supreme Court
ruled that such regulation is unconstitutional.[50]
Other governments and judicial systems have different standards for regulating
the content of communications. Yet for most users around the world, the
Internet offers access to a wider range of information and communications
capabilities than is available through other media.

Interference on the Internet is a major public policy
issue. The large volume of unsolicited email (“spam”) distributed on the
Internet essentially creates noise in Internet users’ mailboxes and causes
inefficient use of personal attention, a scarce resource.[51]
Completely eliminating such noise is widely recognized to be not only
infeasible but also undesirable.[52]
Nonetheless, Internet users have looked to government for help, and governments
around the world are actively seeking to regulate e-mail interference in ways
that produce net benefits.[53]
Interference in domain name addresses has also emerged as a major public policy
issue. As is the case with interference in U.S. patent applications, special
institutions and regulations have been created to govern domain name
interference disputes. Domain name interference regulation has emphasized
“private sector leadership,” a slogan popular in the U.S. government in the
late 1990s. However, national governments and international treaty
organizations, acting in ways that obscure political accountability, have
strongly influenced domain name regulation. Careful analysis also indicates
that the scope and the significance of interference problems have been
exaggerated.[54]

3. Commercial Wireless Services

Commercial wireless services are provided in ways commonly
appreciated for many goods. That means a person, in the role of customer or
consumer, buys the goods that she wants. Freedom in this context is about
having money. Freedom also depends on the scope of opportunities to buy and
on the prices at which goods are available. Competition among profit-seeking
firms within a well-functioning capital market is widely considered to promote
consumer freedom.

Consider, for example, the multi-national corporation Orange.
In 1994, Orange, established as the fourth mobile service provider in the UK,
began selling. By early 1996, Orange served about a half-million customers and
was on the FTSE-100 list of the UK’s largest companies. Among its many
offerings, Orange pioneered pre-pay service, per second billing, and caller ID
as a standard feature. By late 1999, Orange, then serving about 3.5 million
customers, was bought by Mannesmann, a Germany corporation. Early in 2000, Vodaphone,
a British company, bought Mannesman, and the European Commission required the
divestiture of Orange. While prices of mobile calls continued to drop, Orange
developed additional services, including conference calling, vocal e-mail
delivery, and voice recognition technology. In mid-2000, France Telecom bought
Orange from Vodaphone. The new company, named Orange SA and headquartered in
Paris, served in 2000 about eighteen million French customers, eight million British
customers, and nine million customers in wholly owned subsidiaries in seven
other countries. Now included in the CAC40, a list of France’s forty largest
corporations, Orange aims to provide service in 50 countries by 2005.[55]

Orange presents its commercial wireless services as promoting
freedom. Orange calls its services wirefreeTM communications,
rather than wireless communications, and thus emphasizes freedom from being
“encumbered by wires.” Considerable thought went into choosing the name Orange:

The team brainstormed names and
refined the core brand proposition from four options to a composite of three
ideas (my world, manager, my friend). The composite idea was “It’s my life.” ….

….

“Orange” was
the word that best represented their ideas, with its connotations of hope, fun,
and freedom.[56]

In 1999, Orange launched a £12 million UK advertising
campaign emphasizing, “Orange enables you to communicate wherever, whenever and
however you want.”[57]
This freedom is important to users:

Text messaging may be the
ultimate street language for today's teenagers, but many are using this new way
of communicating as a way to combat nerves when embarking on new relationships
according to a recent survey conducted by Orange. Over 30% of
16-18yr olds are sending an average of over 20 messages a week and many
respondents are relying on texting to avoid those tricky face to face
conversations.

…

Denise Lewis, [Orange]
Group Director of Corporate Affairs, stated: "Text messaging provides yet
another way to share our thoughts with others. Where shyness used to prevent
some from communicating their feelings, text messaging has fully opened the
gates; the buzz of receiving text messages goes on the anytime, anywhere
scenario. Orange text messaging is the ideal way to keep in touch!"

Text messaging is now more popular than ever. A total of 373m text messages
were sent over the Orange network (UK and France)
in January this year, an 86% increase in the last six months.

To cater for the increasing text messaging phenomenon, Orange has
launched Orange Out Here, a new mobile phone package that offers
five free text messages a day. The package also includes up to 2 reserve calls
which can be used when call credit has expired, as well as an additional £5
free airtime on top of the £5 already available on Just Talk.[58]

Orange offers a variety of other products to increase users’
freedom of action and expression. Users can buy a mobile phone featuring
always-on connectivity to the Internet, wireless local connectivity to laptop
computers and personal digital assistants, and tri-band operation allowing
roaming across five continents (£179.99, monthly payment available). Orange
has worked with a British bank to allow customers to do banking through their
mobile phones. Orange implemented a service that allows users to bet on
horse-races through their mobile phones. Users have a wide range of choices of
phone styles and accessories. For example, users can buy a Mexican influenced
cactus phone cover, an oriental Dragon design, or pop art female and male faces
(£19.99 each).[59]
Users satisfied with a standard black phone are also free to choose that.

While commercial wireless services are associated with a
widely practiced freedom, this type of freedom has significant limitations. Orange
offers on a profit-seeking basis the above choices to customers in the UK. Orange
seeks to provide similar choices to customers in France, where its headquarters
and top management reside, and in the many other countries. But every country,
like every person, is special and unique. National laws, typically considered
to be related to national security or cultural integrity, limit the operation
of companies like Orange.[60]
Laws and government practices that limit private, profit-seeking corporations’
willingness to invest capital also limit the scope of commercial wireless
services.[61]
The extent of consumer spending power is an additional constraint on commercial
wireless services.

Freedom associated with commercial wireless services does
not encompass important aspects of persons and societies. Policy issues such
as international justice, privacy, and use rights are treated as just another
product attribute that an individual chooses, like animal testing for perfume
or the organically grown status of vegetables. But in most societies, politics
and policy decisions are about more than just marketing products. The
composite idea of Orange, “It’s my life,” presents an anonymous speaker
articulating “it,” “my,” and “life.” One feels impelled to ask: “Who are
you?”; “Are you alienated from your life?”; “Is that it?” An understanding of
freedom merely concerned with choices for having or owning misses important
aspects of human being.

Concern about interference in commercial wireless services
focuses on the interaction of different service providers’ radio signals.
Under current radio regulations, commercial wireless service users seldom
experience such interference. Service qualities that users experience
typically depend much more significantly on network build-out and network
technology. However, before constructing a network, commercial wireless
service providers typically seek a license to use specific frequencies, and the
license is often associated with particular network technologies. For example,
Orange in the year 2000 bought for £4.1 billion a license to provide UMTS
service in the UK.[62]
Acquiring a license greatly reduces the extent to which Orange has to manage
radio signal interference as a business risk and an operating concern. On the
other hand, the value of Orange’s UK UMTS license is likely to depend strongly
on whether other companies can acquire licenses to provide services similar to
UMTS in the UK using alternative radio rights. Orange’s primary business focus
is not on governing radio frequency use but on providing wireless services to
customers. Under current radio regulations, radio signal interference in
commercial wireless services is only a minor business concern outside of the
licensing process. Under different radio regulations, such as an unlicensed
use regime, radio signal interference might significantly affect service
qualities that customers perceive. In such a situation, dealing with radio
signal interference would be another aspect of serving customers.

Interference among commercial wireless service providers’
radio signals is a rather different issue in low-income countries than in
high-income countries. Low-income countries typically have little military use
of radio; underdeveloped, public radio and television broadcasting; and much
greater demand for low-quality radio services at correspondingly low prices.
International radio regulations and the global radio equipment industry may not
produce regulations and equipment appropriately adapted to the relatively low
opportunity cost of radio use in low-income countries. Although low-income
countries face different circumstances, their commercial wireless services may
be effectively constrained by interference concerns in high-income countries.

To better understand freedom, consider what communications
capabilities persons actually exercise. Table 10 summarizes amateur radio,
Internet, and mobile telephony users per thousand persons in 164 countries,
grouped by World Bank income categories. Looking across all countries, the
median figures show about three times as many mobile users as Internet users,
and about a thousand times as many mobile telephony users as amateur radio
users. These data indicate that the commercial wireless services field has
been relatively successful in bringing its type of freedom to persons around
the world. These facts do not necessarily imply that commercial wireless
services are much more important to personal welfare and the common good than
are the Internet and amateur radio. But they do describe important aspects of
persons’ communications activities in relation to much different fields of
freedom.

Table 10

World Communications Capabilities
By Income

(median for countries in income class)

Users Per Thousand Persons

Income Class

Number of Countries

Amateur Radio

Internet

Mobile Telephony

1. High

39

0.7660

310

711

2. Upper Middle

32

0.3320

82

212

3. Lower Middle

47

0.0801

26

67

4. Low

46

0.0022

3

10

All Classes

164

0.0951

35

105

Comparing Income Classes

Ratio of Users Per Thousand

Ratio of Income Classes

Number Ratio

Amateur Radio

Internet

Mobile Telephony

1/2

39/32

2.3

3.8

3.3

2/3

32/47

4.1

3.2

3.2

3/4

47/46

36.9

9.8

7.0

Comparing Fields

Ratio of Users Per Thousand

Income Class

Number of Countries

Amateur/

Internet

Amateur/

Mobile

Internet/

Mobile

1. High

39

0.25%

0.11%

43.54%

2. Upper Middle

32

0.41%

0.16%

38.42%

3. Lower Middle

47

0.31%

0.12%

38.42%

4. Low

46

0.08%

0.02%

27.38%

All Classes

164

0.27%

0.09%

33.07%

Sources and Details: See Appendices A and C.

The extent of communications capabilities has major
significant for emergencies and disasters. One approach to emergency response
and disaster communications is to have a small number of communicators who have
special disaster response skills. The admirable services of amateur radio
users are well-recognized in this regard. But having more dispersed
communications capabilities can also play a critical role in emergency
response. The presence of mobile phones among the passengers on a hijacked U.S.
airline, along with the courageous and decisive action of a few strong men,
probably prevented the U.S. Capitol from being destroyed and many additional
persons killed.[63]
Increasing persons’ capabilities also increases the possibilities for evil
acts. Commercial wireless services, the Internet, and even amateur radio can
be used for good or for evil. When confronted with those two general
possibilities, liberal democracies usually place their faith in the good and
promote freedom, while making prudent preparations to confront evil acts that
might occur.

Difference in income levels of countries are strongly
associated with differences in realized communications capabilities. The
number of users per thousand persons drops sharply with country income class
for amateur radio, the Internet, and mobile telephony. The median share of
amateur radio users and Internet users is much less than 1% of the population
in low-income countries. The share of mobile telephony users is only about
1%. Given that about 40% of people live in countries in the low-income
category and about another 35% live in countries in the lower-middle-income
category, many persons around the world have not realized important
communications capabilities.

Some types of freedom are more easily realized than others
in low-income countries. Commercial wireless services have done relatively well
in low-income countries. On the other hand, amateur radio fares particularly
badly in low-income countries and in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East (see
Table 11).[64]
Amateur radio understands freedom as closely tied to government authority.
Good government is not easy to establish and maintain. It is particularly
lacking in low-income countries and in many countries in Africa, Asia, and the Middle
East. Amateur radio needs to better adapt to conditions in low-income
countries. More generally, communications capabilities in low-income countries
develop more quickly in fields less closely tied to government authority.

Around the world many persons now firmly believe in ideas of
natural freedom and equal rights. The exact meaning of these beliefs and the
extent to which they are fundamentally justified animates much scholarly
discussion. The current state of scholarly literature suggests that the
epistemic status of such beliefs is essential mysterious. Nonetheless, most
persons do not ground their beliefs in detailed study of political and critical
philosophy.[65]
Disciplined by broad discussion and open-minded observation and analysis, mere
intuitions of truth about natural freedom and equal rights can make major
contributions to practical public decisions. Try it and see whether this is
good for radio regulation.

Natural freedom seems to mean that persons should not be
made to do something, or prevented from doing something, without true reasons.
Consider the FCC’s decision in 1996 to eliminate individual licensing for
certain non-mandatory radios on ships and aircraft. The FCC explained that
licenses are not needed:

Individual licensing also is
unnecessary for any of our regulatory purposes. We perform our regulatory
responsibilities for the Maritime and Aviation Services primarily through the
rulemaking process to allocate spectrum, to implement requirements for license
eligibility, and to define types of communication that may be transmitted. In
addition, all channels are shared by all licensees so spectrum management
occurs through channel sharing, in real time, or through control exercised
generally by the FAA or Coast Guard.[66]

The “overwhelming
support” that the “vast majority” of commenters provided made eliminating
individual licensing an easy decision for the FCC.[67]

Intuitions about
natural freedom can provide motivation for seeking truth and acting on it, even
despite a contrary consensus and satisfaction with the status quo. The FCC’s
proposal in 1982 to eliminate individual licenses for Citizens Band (CB) radio
and radio control devices encountered “almost unanimous opposition” from commenters.
The FCC noted:

Many of the commenters argue that if our position that
we do not accomplish spectrum management through the licensing function in
these services is true, then it is equally as true for other services, and not
a valid reason to eliminate individual licenses for R/C [radio control radio]
and CB [radio].[68]

This argument warned
the FCC that challenging the consensus in this area could have consequences
elsewhere. The FCC was not afraid:

This argument is not valid. A license in the R/C or CB services
permits operation on every channel in each service. A license in the GMRS
(General Mobile Radio Service) or in the private land mobile radio services
authorizes operation only upon the frequency (ies) or frequency pair assigned….[69]

Commenters argued that
licensing was what made the FCC matter:

Many of the comments stated that licensing in these services serves the
function of informing users that there is an FCC and that there are rules the
user must obey. Commenters stated that licensing reminds an operator that
transmitting is a regulated privilege.[70]

The FCC had enough
institutional self-confidence to dismiss this argument:

There are few CB’ers who haven’t heard of “Uncle Charlie.” The
existence of a license does not play an essential role in this process…[71]

Commenters argued:

… since the majority of users apply for licenses and comply with our
rules, licensing must work.[72]

In response to this
superficial appeal to the comfort of the status quo, the FCC provided facts and
analysis:

This merely begs the question, and does not consider whether other
Commission rules or policies besides the licensing function are responsible for
rule compliance. [presentation of data showing increasing number of CB
interference complaints despite licensing]…[73]

That almost all parties active in this proceeding opposed an
extension of their freedom is worth contemplating. That the FCC nonetheless
gave them that additional freedom is worth savoring.

One can also find instances of radio regulations that are
shockingly contrary to intuitions about natural freedoms. An FCC decision in
August, 2000, reconsidered and confirmed in August, 2001, provides a good case
study.[74]
In November, 1999, the FCC received a petition to eliminate its rules
forbidding CB radio users from communicating with other CB radio users located
more than 250 kilometers away or in countries other than Canada. CB radio
signals can propagate unpredictably and capriciously under effects of sun spots
and other natural phenomena. The question was whether CB users should be
allowed to communicate – intersubjectively interact – using unusual,
unintentional, objective interactions of their signals. Intuitively, one might
ask, “Why should human beings not be allowed to acknowledge each other’s
presence?”

The FCC refused to allow this intuitive natural freedom.
The FCC declared “inconsistent with the purpose of the CB Radio Service”
communication using CB radio signals that happen to travel more than 250
kilometers. Such freedom would “fundamentally change the nature of [CB Radio
Service],” which the FCC defined as a “short-distance voice communications
service.”[75]
Thus restrictions on human freedom (intersubjective interactions) were
preserved to preserve FCC service definitions against the occasional,
objective, natural occurrence of long-distance CB signal propagation. That
seems intuitively wrong. Similarly, the FCC did not give CB radio users the
freedom to communicate with CB radio users in other countries. CB radio users
were allowed only to “exchange messages with [foreign] government stations
relating to civil defense and [to] other stations in the Citizens Radio
Service.”[76]
Many persons around the world would intuitively believe that this CB radio
“wall” surrounding the U.S. should be torn down.

The scope of natural freedoms is generally thought to expand
in extraordinary circumstances. Asked in August, 2001, “whether the Commission
ever intended to actually place a limit on distance of communications in
emergency situations,” the FCC reiterated:

…we believe that the Commission
intended the CB Radio Service to be used for the express purpose for which it
was authorized. In this regard, we note that there is nothing in the rules
that indicates the Commission intended to permit any communication between CB
Radio Service stations over 150 miles apart….

With regard to the Petition’s
request that we amend the rules to specifically permit emergency communications
in excess of 155.3 miles, we do not believe this amendment is necessary. As
an initial matter, we note that individuals who find themselves in emergency
situations are likely to have stations in other radio services, such as
amateur, marine, land mobile stations, or cellular or other wireless
telephones, available either to them or to another individual close to the
emergency location.[77]

The FCC then went on to note comparative advantages of other
radio services in emergency situations, including the benefits of Enhanced 911
systems in mobile telephony. With its reason firmly fixed on its regulations,
the FCC ended the key paragraph in its ruling by noting:

…there is nothing in the CB
Radio Service rules that prevents an individual who receives a message that
contains a request for emergency assistance, regardless of how far away the
transmitting station is, from using other communications services to inform
public safety providers of the need for assistance.[78]

A natural, first reaction to a person’s cry for help is to
communicate to her, directly, through the same means she communicated to you,
recognition of her situation and her need for help. Only policy makers with no
respect for intuitions about freedom would pretend that such a freedom does not
exist.

Intuitions about natural freedoms and equal rights point to
many additional, critical insights into radio regulation. Natural freedoms and
equal rights are generally understood with respect to human beings, male and
female. While human beings are animals in a simple-minded biological sense,
even highly disabled humans are intuitively considered to be part of this
highly privileged animal class: human beings understood as equal persons.[79]
Most persons intuitively sense that human intentionality gives an action a
greater claim to freedom and to equality in rights. Most persons also
intuitively understand that sexual difference does not imply fundamental
inequality but points to the creative potential of communication. Most persons
intuitively sense that human expressiveness, even within the historically
shallow conventions of programming languages, has a natural claim to freedom.
These intuitions can help to improve radio regulation.

1. Implications of
Intentionality

Radio regulation often includes class licensing for
categories of radiators. The rules in the US, known as Part 15, are
well-articulated and hence provide rich material for analysis.[80]
Part 15 categorizes radiators as incidental, unintentional, or intentional:

Incidental radiator. A device
that generates radio frequency energy during the course of its operation
although the device is not intentionally designed to generate or emit radio
frequency energy. Examples of incidental radiators are dc motors, mechanical
light switches, etc.

Unintentional radiator. A
device that intentionally generates radio frequency energy for use within the
device, or that sends radio frequency signals by conduction to associated
equipment via connecting wires, but which is not intended to emit RF energy by
radiation or induction.

Intentional radiator. A device
that intentionally generates and emits radio frequency energy by radiation or
induction.[81]

At least formally, this categorization is based on
intentionality, a central aspect of human consciousness.

Contrary to intuitions about natural freedom, human
intentionality gives a radiator less claim to freedom in radio regulation.
Incidental radiators are least intentionally associated with radiation.
Regulations for these devices consist of just one sentence:

Manufactures of these devices
shall employ good engineering practices to minimize the risk of harmful
interference.[82]

Unintentional radiators use radio frequency energy more
intentionally than incidental radiators. Regulations for unintentional
radiators consist of about forty-five pages of detailed technical regulations.
Intentional radiators intentionally project radio waves out into the world
beyond themselves. Doing this makes a device subject to even more extensive
and restrictive regulation.[83]

Why would energy associated with human intentionality be
more subject to regulatory suppression than similar energy that is
meaningless? The conspiracy theory – radio regulation intentionally suppresses
human freedom – seems implausible. To seek further understanding, consider
this scenario. Suppose there were public concern about noise. Suppose local
boys like to play outdoor jam sessions on improvised instruments. Suppose that
overly sensitive car alarms unintentionally make as much noise as the boys.
Shouldn’t regulation attempt to restrain car alarms before it attempts to
restrain boys? Perhaps it comes down to cost-benefit analysis: intentionality
is inversely correlated with marginal suppression costs. It just turns out
that it is cheaper, at the margin, to suppress boys rather than car alarms.
But it is not surprising that authoritative regulation can more cheaply
suppress intentionally created energy. Intentionality implies the possibility
of change in response to authoritative communication. Just tell the boys to
stop. This might be the general logic by which radio regulation suppresses
classes of devices more closely associated with human freedom.

Contrary to intuitions about equal rights for human persons,
increased human intentionality implies in radio regulation more unequal rights
among similar radiators. All incidental radiators are treated equally. They
can be made and used in any way consistent with general norms not defined by
government. In this sense, public regulation respects the natural freedoms and
equal rights of incidental radiators.

Unintentional radiators, more associated with human
intentionality than incidental radiators, have unequal rights under radio
regulation. Among unintentional radiators is a sub-category called “exempt
devices.” Exempt devices include “a digital device used exclusively…by a
public utility,” “a digital device utilized exclusively in an appliance, e.g.
microwave oven, dishwasher, clothes dryer, air conditioner (central or window),”
and other specifically enumerated devices.[84]
Another distinction is between “Class A digital device” and “Class B digital
device”:

Class A digital device. A
digital device that is marketed for use in a commercial, industrial or business
environment, exclusive of a device which is marketed for use by the general
public or is intended to be used in the home.

Class B digital device. A
digital device that is marketed for use in a residential environment
notwithstanding use in commercial, business and industrial environments.
Examples of such devices include, but are not limited to, personal computers,
calculators, and similar electronic devices that are marketed for use by the
general public. …[85]

Class A digital devices are subject to less restrictive
regulations than Class B digital devices. These regulations show that class licensing
does not necessarily imply equal rights under radio law.

Intentional radiators also seem to have unequal rights.
Regulations for intentional radiators, grouped by that term’s definition,
include three subparts, “Subpart C- Intentional Radiators,” “Subpart D –
Unlicensed Personal Communications Services,” and “Subpart E – Unlicensed
National Information Infrastructure Devices.” The latter two subparts
represent more recent regulations. The presence of subparts D and E, which
naturally fall under subpart C, suggest that service names, rather than
intrinsic characteristics, matter in regulation. In a 1989 order reforming
Part 15, the FCC noted:

The provisions for new devices
generally were adopted in response to petitions for rule making that requested
authorization only for the specific device in question. This incremental
method of adopting device-specific regulations resulted in rules that are
lengthy and difficult for the public to understand. It has resulted in the
adoption of standards that are overly complex and, in some cases, unnecessarily
restrictive. There are also a number of apparent inconsistencies in the
technical standards between Part 15 devices that have similar interference
potentials. Early standards adopted to control interference are frequently
significantly different from what is needed at the present time due to
improvements in equipment, such as receiver sensitivity, the increased
proliferation of both licensed and unlicensed operations, and changes to the
frequency allocations of authorized radio services.[86]

The FCC addressed these problems in 1989, but the regulatory
dynamic that created them remains the same. That dynamic continually recreates
unequal rights.

To better support natural freedoms and equal rights, radio regulation
should limit radiator classes to a small number and should recognize a greater
claim to freedom for radiation more closely associated with human
intentionality. Clear principles can help in resisting practical pressures to
define continually new radiator classes. Worth exploring is a scheme with just
two classes: non-purposeful radiators and purposeful radiators. Non-purposeful
radiators could be analogized to pollution sources. Insights and experience in
environmental regulation could be applied to regulating these radiators.
Purposeful radiators could be analogized to persons. Insights and experience
in regulating personal activities such as walking and talking could be applied
to regulating purposeful radiators. Such an approach would make radio
regulation more consistent with intuitions about the implications of human
intentionality.

2. Sexual Awareness in Radio
Regulation

Aspects of transmitters dominate radio regulation. Radio
regulation, both internationally and nationally, divides radio communication
into transmission and reception. Transmitters are the primary focus of
regulatory concern, while receivers are treated as a mere adjunct to
transmission.[87]
The subjectivity of receivers, important in practice, is generally ignored in discussion
of radio regulation.[88]
Communication tends to be viewed as a mechanical transfer of substance from
transmitter to receiver. Thus radio regulation presents a fundamental
inequality between transmitters and receivers, one that obscures important,
practical aspects of communication.[89]

Intuitions about sex help to expose these weaknesses in
radio regulation. Males and females, although they function differently in
sex, are fundamentally equal as human persons. They should have equal roles in
government. Moreover, sex is not well understood merely in terms of a division
between transmission and reception. Sex is a creative, unitive act. Sex is
about communication. Radio regulation should be about communication, too.

Communication and the subjectivity of receivers are central
to one of the most successful areas of radio regulation. Under FCC rules, all
receivers associated with a licensed radio service must be labeled with the
following words (the first label):

This device complies with Part
15 of the FCC Rules. Operation is subject to the condition that this device
does not cause harmful interference.[90]

All other devices subject to FCC certification or
verification, with one small exception, must be labeled with these words (the
second label):

This device complies with Part
15 of the FCC Rules. Operation is subject to the following two conditions: (1)
this device may not cause harmful interference, and (2) this device must accept
any interference received, including interference that may cause undesired
operation.[91]

In a world in which all radio devices had an FCC label and
acted in accordance with what the label communicates, the first label would
suffice. There would be no need for the second label and its additional
clause. Yet freedom and evil are part of the world and must be recognized.
Clause (2) of the second label shows that radio regulation understands these
facts and seeks to communicate them, too. The second label counsels the user
that she must just accept certain events.

Communication should not just describe the world, but also
help to change it. Under FCC rules, computers and peripherals marketed for use
in a residential environment are required to have the above second label
affixed to them. In addition, users of these devices are required, under FCC
radio regulations, to be given instructions similar to the following:

If this equipment does cause
harmful interference to radio or television reception, which can be determined
by turning the equipment off and on, the user is encouraged to try to correct
the interference by one or more of the following measures:

– Reorient or relocate the
receiving antenna.

– Increase the separation
between the equipment and receiver.

– Connect the equipment into an
outlet on a circuit different from that to which the receiver is connected.

– Consult the dealer or an
experience radio/TV technician for help.[92]

These instructions suggest that the equipment manufacturer
does not have any responsibility for interference. In 1989, the FCC
specifically declined to require that instructions include contact information
for a manufacturer’s representative who would address interference problems.[93]
Yet such a requirement does not seem burdensome compared to the requirements
imposed on transmitters in radio regulation.

Over the past two decades, these little noticed aspects of
communication in radio regulation have significantly reduced interference
concerns. Regulators, equipment manufacturers, and other organized groups have
developed voluntary standards addressing interference perceived in reception.[94]
In response to improved designs for receivers, the number of interference
complaints to the FCC has dropped significantly since 1982.[95]
Available public information indicates that FCC does not now consider radio
frequency interference, as real persons actually experience it, to be a major
public problem. On the FCC website in the late 1990s, descriptive material
concerning consumer issues stated:

The FCC does not routinely
investigate complaints of interference to telephones and home electronic or
entertainment equipment. The FCC will only investigate where there is
convincing evidence that results from a violation of rules and, then, only on a
law priority basis.[96]

The consumer section of the FCC website currently offers
this advice to persons experiencing interference in radio or television
reception:

…the source of the problem could
be your home electronics equipment. It may not be adequately designed with
circuitry or filtering to reject the unwanted signals of nearby transmitters.
The FCC recommends that you contract the manufacturer and/or the store where
the equipment was purchased to resolve the problem.[97]

Intuitions about equality among communicating parties
suggests that these relatively successful approaches to receiver regulation
could be extended more equally to transmitters. Regulators could merely
express an expectation that transmitters, like receivers, would function
harmoniously and satisfactorily for most persons in the existing radio frequency
environment. Regulation might just urge persons to contact service providers
about any interference problems that might arise.

More extensive regulation of performance responsibility
might be warranted. Suppose that radio regulation assigned manufacturers
liability for secular declines in the performance of radio communications
devices to the extent that radio frequency interference causes the decline in
performance. Moreover, suppose that radio regulation required that a statement
of this liability be included with the instructions for every radio
communications device. The statement would include identification and
convenient means to contact a manufacture’s representative designated to
address interference liability concerns. This statement would give customers
some additional rights that, all else equal, might be reflected in higher
prices to customers. Given rapid turnover in many radio communications
devices, the prevalence of guarantees and warranties observed without specific
requirements, and companies often expressed desires to establish relationships
with customers, such a regulatory requirement does not seem unnatural or unduly
burdensome.

Such a regulatory requirement could be highly beneficial to
all parties. Use of old radio communications equipment often interferes with
possibilities for new uses and types of radio communications. Much better
than protecting users’ radio rights is to make those rights, as embedded in the
specific equipment used, vanish over time. Under a good regulatory regime, the
price/performance ratio for radio equipment could easily shrink by half every
two years. In such an environment, the cost of paying interference liability
for each radio device after three years of use would add only 12.5% to the cost
of the devices. Radio regulation that treated transmission and reception more
equally and that attached more importance to communication could produce
enormous benefits for persons, services providers, and equipment manufacturers.

3. Software Rights for Adults

Human freedom increasingly relates to software
capabilities. Most persons do not want software that arbitrarily rules over
them. Free software/Open Source licenses give users, and software developers,
the freedom to study, modify, and share software.[98]
The growing significance of GNU/Linux points to the practical importance of
these freedoms. Microsoft, in contrast, has been very successful in providing
a Windows platform, which is based on proprietary code. The Windows platform
gives software developers the capability to serve easily a large number of
users. Building upon the Windows platform, independent software developers
have created for users many software choices and capabilities.[99]
These choices and capabilities are also an important aspect of freedom.

With hardware, certain kinds of freedom are difficult to
suppress. FCC rules state:

The users manual or
instructional manual for an intentional or unintentional radiator shall caution
the user that changes or modifications not expressly approved by the party
responsible for compliance could void the user’s authority to operate the
equipment.[100]

A computer is categorized as an unintentional radiator. It
seems implausible that computer manufacturers expressly approve many of the
sorts of hardware changes (upgrades) persons make to their computers.
Moreover, changes are likely to be detected only if they interfere with some
other device. In addition, the FCC is likely to respond to such interference
only if it relates to radio communications for critical public functions.
Administrative action is a weak instrument for voiding users’ natural freedoms
with hardware.

Software defined radios (SDRs) are now attracting
considerable interest. An SDR converts a wide bandwidth of radio frequency
energy to a digital data stream.[101]
Based on an agreed communications protocol expressed in software, digital
signal processing equipment in the SDR extracts the intentionally radiated
signal from the data stream. This architecture facilitates low-cost
communication using many different communications protocols. As a leader in
the SDR field explains:

Some believe that future radio
services will per force provide seamless access across cordless telephone,
wireless local loop, PCS, mobile cellular and satellite mobile modes of
communication, including integrated data and paging. Anyone who needs to access
even half that many radio modes at once clearly will have to move to software
radio based infrastructure.[102]

SDRs have different implications for freedom than do
traditional radio hardware. In a recent order, the FCC stated:

…a means will be necessary to
avoid unauthorized modifications to software that could affect the compliance
of a radio. Because groups such as the SDR Forum and ETSI are sill in the
process of developing standards for encryption and digital signatures that
could be used in software defined radios, we decline to propose specific
requirements for authentication. Instead, we propose a more general
requirement that manufacturers take steps to ensure that only software that is
part of a hardware/software combination approved by the Commission or a TCB
[Telecommunication Certification Body] can be loaded into a radio.[104]

The FCC established rules by which manufacturers get FCC
authorization for the software used in their radios. The FCC established rules
for authorizing changes in software, and the FCC also established rules relating
to third-party development of software.[105]
The FCC clarified that, in exercising its regulatory authority, it will
distinguish between software applications and software that controls radio
frequency operating parameters.[106]
Compared to its control over unauthorized hardware changes, the FCC’s control
over freedom with radio software may be much greater.[107]

Having a single federal agency with broad discretion and
powerful means to control an important field of software may not be sound
policy. Innovation in software, like innovation in ideas and fashions,
potentially can occur and disseminate quickly at low cost. Detailed
administrative control stifles innovation. The expressive aspect of software,
a language of control, also makes establishing stable, constraining categories
of regulatory control more difficult than for other less expressive areas, such
as supplying standard electric currents. Moreover, software users much more naturally
create social and technical networks than hardware users.[108]
Some programmers unquestionably will figure out how to get around FCC control
of radio software. Creating a large space for extra-legal software could
undermine more generally the rule of law in radio regulation.

Giving adults freedom to program SDRs is a more important
public interest than avoiding some risk of radio signal interference. SDRs
make speaking in electromagnetic spectrum equivalent to speaking a programming
language. This capacity for human expressiveness has an intuitive claim to
freedom analogous to free speech.[109]
Freely programmable SDRs could more easily adapt to dynamic patterns of radio
use in a given place. This makes individual freedom in radio use less socially
threatening. Mature and civilized radio users could more easily and
intentionally accommodate each others’ behavior. Radio regulation might thus
recognize human intentionality to be not a threat but a good. In addition, SDRs
allow large-scale, low-cost production of radio equipment that could be
modified locally to adapt to needs in low-income countries with challenging
climactic and geographic circumstances. Promoting a propitious environment for
SDRs’ development would foster expansion of communications capabilities to
persons in disadvantageous circumstances.

Some kinds of personal freedom are more conventional than
others. Freedom within the home from certain types of searches and seizures
has deep historical and sentimental roots:

The special, intimate function
served by the home was first legally recognized in antiquity. Greek and Roman
law accorded the home special protection as the living area of the family, and
as a place of worship and refuge. Common law expressions such as "My house
is my castle" reflect the enduring prominence of the home in the
development of Western law. The right to privacy in the home was first
recognized as a fundamental right in the Virginia Bill of Rights from 1770, and
it is embodied in the Fourth Amendment of the United States
Constitution. In Germany, the inviolability of the home was first
recognized as a fundamental right in the Paulskirchen Constitution of 1849. The
Weimar Constitution also guaranteed the privacy of the home, but,
as explained above, it offered no means of enforcing that right.[110]

A U.S. judge explained:

A sane, decent, civilized
society must provide some such oasis, some shelter from public scrutiny, some
insulated enclosure, some enclave, some inviolate place-which is a man's
castle.[111]

What does this have to do with radio regulation?

In the mid-eighteen century, the invention of the Leyden jar
spurred explorations and demonstrations of the wonders of electricity. Leyden
jars can discharge powerful electrical currents and sparks. They provided a
tool for exercising reason to better understand nature, and hence attracted
considerable attention:

The Leyden jar revolutionized
the study of electrostatics. Soon “electricians” were earning their living all
over Europe demonstrating electricity with Leyden
jars. Typically, they killed birds and animals with electric shock or sent
charges through wires over rivers and lakes. In 1746 the abbé Jean-Anoine Nollet,
a physicist who popularized science in France, discharged a Leyden
jar in front of King Louis XV by sending current through a chain of 180 Royal
Guards. In another demonstration, Nollet used wire made from iron to connect a
row of Carthusian monks more than a kilometer long; when a Leyden jar was
discharged, the white-robed monks reportedly leapt simultaneously into the air.[112]

Undoubtedly, scientists, electricians and other active
persons of the time regularly created large sparks and surging currents using Leyden
jars and other equipment set up within their homes. About 150 years later, Henrich
Hertz recognized that these activities broadcast radio frequency energy.

Taking this long view points to an important question about
freedom. Whether persons exploring electricity in the mid-eighteenth century
created radio frequency energy intentionally is a question best left to
some academic philosophers. Perhaps one might question whether, in the
mid-eighteen century, experimenting with electricity should have required
government license. While some government officials might answer that question
affirmatively, such a view seems extreme and inconsistent with the sort of
freedoms that naturally exist.[113]
But suppose that in some common law country in the mid-eighteenth century
persons were required use Leyden jars only in accordance with relevant
government regulations. Persons who violated these regulations could be
subject to criminal proceedings. Would a law enforcement official be required
to have more specific authorization than a general warrant to inspect a house
for a Leyden jar being used in violation of the law?[114]

Questions of this sort deserve some thought. In the US, the
FCC seems to assert that its agents may, without a specific warrant, inspect a
house for any equipment that radiates radio frequency energy. Inspections must
be allowed “without unnecessary delay”; the FCC suggests that “[i]mmediate
on-the-spot inspections are generally necessary.”[115]
Unauthorized radio station operation in the U.S. has on occasion been grounds
for criminal charges.[116]
FCC field agents use equipment not in general public use to monitor, among
other things, radio frequency energy emanating from houses. To persons with
little legal learning, such searches of the home seem to violate the Fourth
Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.[117]

The relationship between radio regulation and freedom in the
home may not have mattered for practical reasons in the past, but this
relationship is likely to be stressed in the future. Few persons, from their
homes, without prior regulatory authorization, create of their own initiative
the magnitude of radio frequency energy that Benjamin Franklin did in Philadelphia
in the mid-eighteenth century.[118]
Most persons simply use devices that radiate radio frequency energy according
to hardware that others design. The number and diversity of radio devices used
within the home are likely to grow rapidly in the future. Moreover, radio
devices, such as SDRs, will give at least some users effectively greater
freedom to control devices’ radio emissions. Courts will likely confront
difficult questions concerning how law enforcement officials search for
unlawful radio devices and enter houses to inspect radio equipment that legally
relevant evidence indicates are present.

Rather than await long and contentious court battles to
establish the parameters of freedom within the home from searches for radio
devices, policy makers should on their own initiative change radio regulations
to recognize more formally causes for inspections for radio devices. Causes
might be explicitly related to evidence that legally operating parties are
experiencing harmful interference, and that this harm is probably related to
illegal radio operation by another party. No documented harm, no cause for law
enforcement search of a home for radio devices. Causes might also need to be
identified, at least transitionally, with respect to clearly enumerated public
safety issues on particular frequencies.[119]
Recognizing “fixture bands,” radio frequencies with use rights geographically
circumcised by real estate boundaries, represents a narrower perspective on
freedom applied to a more encompassing category of space.[120]
But freedom within the home with respect to radio means more than just use
rights.

[2]
Thermal radiation is proportional to temperature in Kelvin and the bandwidth
measured. At typical room temperatures, human beings are net electromagnetic
radiators. A rough estimate of human power is straight-forward. Approximate a
human being as a sphere of water with 1 meter diameter. Since water is close
to a black body, the human body is essentially a black body. With these
approximations, the Stefan-Boltzmann law then implies that a non-feverish human
being sitting in a typical office is equivalent to a (point) radiator with net
output about 260 Watts. Most of this power is radiated in a way invisible to
supervisory personnel, i.e. the power is radiated in the infrared part of the
electromagnetic spectrum. My skills as an electrical engineer have faded badly;
you should verify this calculation yourself. All necessary information is
readily available. See, for example,
http://www.eng.auburn.edu/~wfgale/usda_course/section1_4_page2.htm

[5]
These formal weaknesses are also strengths. The adopted definition of “radio
communication” provided more interpretative space in the legal field for
incorporating common understandings of human freedom into the legal definition
of radio communication.

Radio frequency (RF)
energy. Electromagnetic energy at any frequency in the radio spectrum from 9
kHz to 3 THz (3,000 GHz).

The FCC’s constituting statute defines “radio
communications” in a way that does not explicate the meaning of “radio”.
Specifically, 47 USC 153(33) defines “radio communication” as “transmission by
radio of writing, signs, signals, pictures, and sounds of all kinds,” as well
as associated services and facilities.

[11]
On common knowledge of power lines causing radio and television interference,
see Southern Indiana Gas and Electric Company v. Gerhardt, 241 Ind. 389, 172
N.E.2d 204 (1961). State courts have exercised jurisdiction over disputes
concerning electromagnetic radiation resulting from power lines. See Central
Kansas Telephone Co. v. Kansas Corporation Commission, 113 P.2d 159 (1941);
Floyd v. Ocmulgee Electric Membership Corp., 16 S.E.2d 208 (1941); and Hale v.
Farmers Electric Membership Corp., 99 P.2d 454 (1940). On FCC regulation of
electromagnetic waves over power lines, see FCC (1999a). The FCC regulates
some aspects of some types of lights. See FCC (1999b). New Zealand’s Radio
Spectrum Management Group recently found that an electric power crisis that led
to serious power outages had a dramatically beneficial effect in reducing noise
in frequency bands used for wireless services. The study did not consider the
value of activities that create electromagnetic waves. See RSMG (1998).

[13]
Senior, Sengupta, and Ferris (1977) p. 11. Recently, The FCC’s Technical
Advisory Council (TAC) was asked to assess the current state of knowledge on
electromagnetic noise levels. See http://www.fcc.gov/oet/tac/requests.pdf,
p. 2. The TAC issued its final report on this issue on June 12, 2002. See http://www.fcc.gov/oet/tac/.

[14]
See, for example, the offerings of Terabeam (http://www.terabeam.com).
Optical systems are being implemented for inter-satellite links. See FCC
(2001b).

Optical beam
communications are not considered a type of radio communication since they
operate at frequencies above 300 GHz, and they are not within the jurisdiction
of the Communications Act [footnote to 47 USC §§ 152, 153(33)].

The relationship between this finding and the
definition of radio waves is unclear. See 47 CFR § 2.1(c). For an FCC concern
with lights, see FCC (1999b). Light interference (light pollution) is a major
public concern. See, for example, material available from the International
Dark-Sky Association (http://www.darksky.org)
and the New England Light Pollution Advisory Group (http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/cfa/ps/nelpag.html).
In 1999, Texas Governor George W. Bush signed a law to reduce light pollution.
See discussion and links at http://www.limber.org/ida/lp.html.

[16]
An FCC staff member with over twenty years of service fondly remembers
being
shown, as part of his new employee orientation, the thriller,
“Patrolling the
Either” (MGM, 1944) The heroes in this movie are agents in the
FCC’s Radio
Intelligence Division, which sought to uncover domestic spy
transmitters in
World War II. This movie was the first made-for-television drama
and was shown
simultaneously on three television stations in April 10,
1944. The FCC has long recognized the importance of
defending freedom. The challenge is to do that
most effectively for everyone in current circumstances.

[17]
Medieval Jewish and Christian thinkers struggled extensively with the issue of
freedom, while, for complicated reasons, most Islamic thinkers did not. See Fradkin
(2002). Modern thinkers, both within Islam and outside of it, should not
presume that similar thinking about freedom is not relevant to their lives and
not worthy of their attention.

[18]
The latter insight seems to be largely lacking in academic literature on
political philosophy and critical theory. A jazz musician shared it with me in
a bar in Boston.

[19]
The name “amateur” radio for independent, non-commercial radio users probably
evolved from an implicit comparison between these users and army and navy radio
operators. Independent, non-commercial radio users also tended to be called
“boys.” Anecdotal evidence suggests that most “amateurs” were young and male,
but the average age or sex composition of early amateurs has not been
well-established. For a wonderful, personal account of a “girl amateur,” see
Radio Amateur News (1920).

[33]
See FCC (1987). The number of amateurs and the allocation of frequencies among
amateurs are not regulated. Many of the arguments used to justify broadcast
content regulation do not apply to amateur radio.

[36]
The lowest class of license requires passing a 35-question written examination,
the middle class adds a five words per minute Morse Code test, and the highest
class license requires passing a 50-question test and a five words per minute
Morse Code test. The FCC recently restructured the set of amateur licenses and
reduced the speed requirement for the amateur Morse Code tests. Morse Code
proficiency at the level of 16 code groups per minute and 20 words per minute
was retained for commercial radio operators. See FCC (2001c). The Morse Code
test has generated considerable world-wide opposition among amateurs, and it is
likely to be eliminated within a few years in most countries other than the U.S.
For information, see the articles on the No-Code International website, http://www.nocode.org/articles.html.
On the ARRL’s position, see http://www.nocode.org/articles/NCI_ltr_to%20ARRL_re_Morse_res.html

[37]
Membership of the IARU consists of member-societies, with only one
member-society per country or separate territory, each having a single vote.
The rights of a member-society may be suspended if it “has failed to fulfill
its duties” under the IARU Constitution, “has acted contrary to the interests
of Amateur Radio or the IARU,” or “no longer adequately represents the
interests of radio amateurs throughout its country and/or separate territory.”
A two-thirds majority is required to terminate a member-societies membership in
the IARU. See IARU Constitution, online at http://www.iaru.org/iarucnst.html.

[38] The organization serving as International Secretariat
has a powerful position in the IARU. Under the IARU Constitution, a member
society serving as International Secretariat (in this case, the ARRL) continues
to serve until a successor is elected (the time period or procedure by which
such an election might be held is not specified). The policy and management of
the IARU is carried out by the Administrative Council, which consists of a
President, Vice President, Secretary and six additional members, two from each
of three regions of the world. Single candidates for President and Vice
President are nominated by the International Secretariat, subject to agreement
from the (existing) Administrative Council that the proposed candidates are
“suitably qualified.” Candidates for these offices are ratified by a simple
majority vote of Member-Societies. The President and Vice President serve
terms of five years and continue in office until the nomination of a successor
has been ratified. The International Secretariat designates the Secretary of
the Administrative Council, who serves at the will of the International
Secretariat. See IARU Constitution, ibid.

[42]
Williams (2002) Chapter 4, beginning sixth paragraph from the end (pp. 55,
56). Stallman’s spiel seems more like a loose and obtuse adaptation of Job
38-41. The rest of the story may differ superficially from Job 42, but there
are also similarities. See Williams (2002) Chapter 14. Note as well that the
paragraph following the last one cited quotes Stallman as saying, “The way I
see it, any being that has power and abuses it deserves to have that power
taken away.” This appears to be a different perspective on power than the one
in the immediately preceding paragraph. Stallman’s home page, www.stallman.org, presents many different
concerns about justice and mercy. Some of these concerns are of dubious moral
and intellectual quality. Stallman’s significance as an ethical thinker seems
to come from his awesome programming achievements and his clear operating
principles as a programmer.

[43]
Stallman (1998), from the last two paragraphs. Stallman presents himself as a
big man. U.S. government officials before WWI tended to referred to
individual, non-commercial radio users as “amateurs” or “boys.” The tone of
friendly condescension is particularly apparent in a Congressional Report from
April, 1910:

The committee means fair
play for industrious, inventive American boys, and, without consulting with
him, ventures the statement that there is no other man in the United
States in more cordial accord with their ambitions than the President
of the United States…

[45]
See Raymond (2000), section 2. The entry for “hacker” in Jargon File, version 4.3.1, 29 Jun 2001, states,
“We have a report that it [the term “hacker”] was used in a sense
close to this entry's by teenage radio hams and electronics tinkerers in the
mid-1950s.” See Raymond (2001b). Bruce Perens, one of the founders of the
Open Source movement and an important hacker, is also an active ham. He
founded No-Code International and also is a member of ARRL. Perens has stated
publicly that he contributed $1000 to ARRL’s frequency defense fund in the year
2001. Perens website is http://perens.com.
For some of his views on amateur radio, see
http://perens.com/Articles/NCI-reform.txt

[49]
Internet domain names (top level “web addresses”) are associated with a
registrant and physical address through the WHOIS protocol. For an example of
a WHOIS service, see http://www.geektools.com/cgi-bin/proxy.cgi . The number
of Internet users who have their own domain name is a small subset of all
Internet users. Moreover, much Internet use of Internet users who have a
domain name takes place without reference to the user’s domain name. The
policy implications of the WHOIS database are insightfully analyzed in Mueller
(2002), Section 11.2.2.

[51]
Daum Communications, Korea’s largest e-mail service provider, recently
implemented a “pay-for-service” system for the transmission of more than 1000
e-mails. Daum has also sued three companies in Seoul District Court for
sending more than 6 million messages a month to Daum subscribers. See http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/SITE/data/html_dir/2002/05/23/200205230020.asp
On the economics of personal attention, see Galbi (2001a).

[52]
Most persons would like to receive an unsolicited e-mail from a long lost
friend.

Much attention has been
devoted to the threat of cybersquatting. Less attention has been paid to the
danger that measures to control it are expanding property rights to names at
the expense of free expression, privacy, and competition.

[55]
See Orange.com, sections “investor relations>about orange>history” and
“corporate affairs>about orange>orange firsts”. Oftel figures show UK
mobile prices to have fallen about 60% from 1996/97 to 2000/01. Tracking price
in highly competitive service markets is difficult, and thus such figures
should be analyzed carefully. See Oftel (2001) Fig 2.4. and Appendix A.

[56]
See http://www.orange.com/English/corporate/Orangestory.asp?bhcp=1

[58]
“THE SURVEY SAID: TEXT MESSAGING THE ULTIMATE FLIRTING TOOL!” Orange News,
Marketing, 26 March 2001; online at http://www.orange.co.uk/cgi-bin/news/search.pl.
To make the news release easier to read, I have added four commas, changed
“have” to “has” in the first sentence of the last quoted paragraph, and
capitalized the initial letters in the words “out here” in that sentence.

[59]
The above products are on offer at http://shop.orange.co.uk/NASApp/esales/esales.

[60]
With respect to restrictions in the US, see, for example 47 U.S.C §310 and FCC
(2001f) (FCC’s approval of radio license transfers in conjunction with Deutsche
Telekom’s acquisition of VoiceStream).

[61]
Poor regulation and weak protection for investments are widely cited as
problems inhibiting the development of commercial services.

[62]
Orange also owns UMTS licenses in the France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark,
and Switzerland. See Orange (2002) p. 119.

[63]
For eulogies for these men and biographical details, see http://www.letsrollheroes.com/memorialsites.shtml

[64]
For a complete list of countries, along with category indicators and users per
thousand, see Appendix C.

[65]
And even great learning does not prevent gross misjudgments. See Berkowitz
(2000).

[79]
While humans are intuitively privileged, animals might be considered to have
rights, too. Animal rights are not considered in this paper, although they are
related to practical ethics for scholarly advancement in high-income countries
today.

[80]
47 CFR 15. These rules can be accessed online from http://www.fcc.gov/oet/info/rules/

[83]
See 47 CFR 15.5(d). Additional comparisons between regulations for intentional
radiators and regulations for unintentional radiators are difficult because the
regulations for both categories are complex and differentiated.

In recent years, the
importance of receive performance, however, has been sometimes underestimated,
particularly in some European regulations [footnote to RTTE Directive
(1999/5/EC)] which have tended to relegate receiver aspects to a secondary and
non-essential status.

[88]
A much deeper understanding of reception has had great historical significance
outside of radio regulation. See Luke 1:26-38.

[89]
This inequality contributed to a recent dispute between a microwave licensee
and a PCS licensee. The incumbent microwave user was required to be protected
from interference. The microwave service rules specified a 5 MHz transmission
channel, but did not specify the bandwidth of reception. The microwave
receivers, equipment placed in service in 1980, accepted signals across 12 MHz,
which led to interference being received from a new PCS licensee. The meaning
and implications of this effect was disputed. See FCC (1998).

[93]
FCC (1989b) para. 123. From 1983 to 1985, the FCC required companies marketing
RF lighting devices to provide customers with the name and address of a company
official to contact about interference problems. This requirement was
subsequently eliminated. See FCC (1988) para. 18.

[94]
For information on the FCC’s relationship with these voluntary efforts, see FCC
(1996d) and FCC (1986).

[95]
FCC (1991), ARRL Regulatory Information, on the web at http://www.arrl.org/FandES/field/regulations/rfi-legal/#pl_97_259.
The Senate Report on the Communications Act Amendment of 1968 stated that the
FCC “…received some 38,000 interference complaints during fiscal 1964.” See
1968 U.S.C.C.A.N. 2486, 2488. A Senate Report in 1981 stated, “The Committee
notes that several million interference complaints are received by the FCC each
year.” S. Rep. 97-191,8; 1982 U.S.C.C.A.N. 2237 2244. FCC (1996e) stated,
“Radio frequency interference to telephone conversations result in an estimated
500,000 complaints annually to telephone companies and broadcast stations and
25,000 annual complaints to the FCC.” This may be a high estimate if it
actually just relates to telephones. Introducing a bill concerning CB radio
interference (S. 608), the sponsor stated, “In all, FCC receives more than
30,000 radio frequency interference complaints annually – most of which are
caused by CB radios.” See 143 Cong. Rec S3349-02, Proceedings and Debates of
the 105’th Congress, First Session, April 17, 1997. Other evidence indicates
that, about a year earlier, the number of complaints received was “nearly
45,000 [interference] complaints annually.” See 142 Cong. Rec. S9555-02,
statement on S. 2025, Proceedings and Debates of the 104th Congress,
Second Session, Aug. 2, 1996. FCC (1996f) stated, “Each year the FCC receives
thousands of complaints of interference to televisions, radios, audio systems,
telephones, and other home electronics equipment.” A poster in an FCC lobby
during Public Service Awareness Week, May 6-10, 2002, stated, “Last year the
FCC resolved 2100 spectrum interference problems for the public.” While the
above evidence is not entirely consistent, radio frequency interference
complaints to the FCC probably dropped from millions in the early 1980s to
thousands in the year 2001. Given the growth in population and much more
dramatic growth in numbers and use of radio frequency devices and home
electronics equipment, the trend in absolute numbers reflects an even greater
change in the significance of interference to persons or devices. FCC
tracking of informal consumer complaints and inquiries currently does not
include radio frequency interference complaints. This suggests that such
complaints are now relatively unimportant. See http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/CGB/News_Releases/2002/nrcg0203.html

[96]
This statement was made in the course of discussing “CB Violations” in a list
of top consumer issues available from the FCC website inclusive of the period
June. 17, 1997 to May 1, 1999. To see this, search for http://www.fcc.gov/cib/ncc/top50.htm
in the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, available online at http://www.archive.org. Introducing a bill
concerning CB radio interference (S. 608), Mr. Feingold stated, “…the FCC
indicated that due to a lack of resources, the Commission no longer
investigates radio frequency interference complaints. Instead of investigation
and enforcement, the FCC is able to provide only self-help information which
the consumer may use to limit the interference on their own.” See 143 Cong. Rec
S3349-02, Proceedings and Debates of the 105’th Congress, First Session, April 17, 1997.

[98]
See Stallman (1998) and Raymond (1997) for important presentations of free
software/open source.

[99]
A platform provider less capable of credibly providing independent software
developers with significant technological and business freedom will, all else
equal, attract fewer such software developers. An important public policy
issue is the extent to which Microsoft has unfairly used the Windows platform
to limit the freedom of independent software developers.

[103]
This advantage has statutory significance in the U.S. See 47
U.S.C. §157, and
the Telecommunications Act of 1996, PL 104-104, February 8, 1996, 110
Stat 56, §706. The GNU Radio Project shows how SDRs can
contribute to technological
progress. See http://www.gnu.org/software/gnuradio/gnuradio.html

[109]
The issue here is the extent to which the government should control programming
SDRs. Whether it is better for SDR software to be proprietary software or
free software/open source is another question.

[113]
The governing principle of a totalitarian society might be summarized as,
“Anything not explicitly permitted is forbidden.” Fortunately, that principle
is rather difficult to put into practice.

[114]
Davies (1999) provides numerous references to evidence that might be relevant
to considering this question. But it is apparent from page one that the
author’s rhetorically transparent “authentic history” contains gross,
tendentious misinterpretations. I am not a lawyer. I enjoy neither reading
nor writing such articles. While I am willing to make sacrifices to serve the
public, I decided that there is no compelling reason for me to read that 203
page paper. Readers with a different sense of public needs and intellectual
enjoyment might reach a different decision.

[118]
Franklin personally explored the nature and uses of electricity. His work
attracted world-wide attention. In a letter, available online at http://www.dctech.com/physics/humor/ben_franklin.php,
he described a tremendous electrical shock he received in the course of one of
his demonstrations. Franklin, often regarded as the quintessential American,
concluded his account by passing on an anecdote about the stupidity of two
Irishmen.

[119]
Any vulnerability to interference of critical public safety functions, such as
air traffic control, should be treated as a problem in itself. Public safety
functions should be capable of dealing with deliberate, hostile interference.
Thus they should in general be more robust to interference than other
applications.